Wide cut rotary harvesters present inherent challenges in getting outboard severed crop materials to flow smoothly and without hesitation in a lateral direction toward the center of the machine before then turning rearwardly and moving through the central discharge opening into the conditioner rolls. Any hesitation on the part of the crop materials as they “turn the corner” and move rearwardly into the conditioner rolls can cause a number of significant problems, both in the quality of the finished windrows and the quality of cutoff being achieved by the rotary cutters. Due to the increased speeds at which rotary harvesters can travel compared to that of sickle-type machines, cutoff, feeding and control problems are exacerbated in rotary machines due to the dramatically increased volume of cut material flowing through the machines.
It is desirable for many reasons to avoid the use of a large center-gathering auger behind the rotary cutters for achieving the center-feeding function. Without such augers, however, the outboard rotary cutters themselves, sometimes together with upstanding cage-like impellers and other devices, must carry out not only the cutting function but also the lateral conveying function of the crop.
In one preferred rotary cutter bed design, a group of inboard cutters of the bed are arranged with their axes of rotation directly in front of the opening to the conditioner rolls, inboard of conditioning structure on the rolls. At least one, and preferably two, additional outboard cutters are provided at each end of the bed and have their axes of rotation located outboard of the opening and the conditioning structure. The outboard cutters both rotate in the same direction, with their front extremities moving generally inwardly toward the center of the machine to convey outboard cut materials toward the inboard cutters. Most of the cutters of the inboard group are arranged in oppositely rotating pairs with other cutters of the group such that cut crop materials from the paired cutters in the inboard group are directed straight back into the conditioner rolls in a number of streams. However, the two opposite end cutters in the inboard group are each paired up with the next adjacent oppositely rotating outboard cutter, rather than another inboard cutter within the group. Consequently, it is possible that, in some situations, some or all of the crop streams from those “mixed” pairs, where one is an inboard cutter and one is an outboard cutter, may land laterally outwardly beyond the opening, missing the conditioner rolls completely and ending up against wall structure behind the outboard cutters.
This undesirable condition seems most likely to occur if the end cutters of the inboard group are so situated that their cutting knives project outboard of conditioning structure on the conditioning rolls as the knives are moving rearwardly in their paths of travel. It also seems to be the most pronounced when only a partial cut is being taken by the harvester wherein the outboard cutters at one end of the bed are presented with no standing crop material to sever. Cut materials that find their way behind outboard cutters tend to collect in that area and ultimately work their way forward, impeding proper cutoff and otherwise interfering with proper flow into the conditioner rolls. Sometimes, the accumulating material may even shoot out the ends of the cutter bed, rather than flowing to the center and being processed by the conditioner rolls.
The present invention involves a way of making the corner regions of the opening to the conditioner rolls “live” or “active” so as to encourage the smooth, orderly flow of crop materials into the conditioner rolls at those critical areas. In one preferred embodiment, this is accomplished through the use of relatively short, small, horizontally oriented stub augers immediately behind and between the axes of rotation of the end inboard cutters and the next adjacent outboard cutters. Preferably, such stub augers to do not extend laterally outwardly beyond the first outboard cutters, and they overhang the rear extremities of such cutters at a level slightly above the cutting plane so as to help strip materials from the cutters that might otherwise tend to carry around the cutters. Inboard ends of the stub augers preferably project inwardly beyond the corresponding outboard ends of conditioning structure on the conditioner rolls, and the augers are preferably at substantially the same level vertically as the closest lower conditioner roll in the set of conditioner rolls.